


Inertia

by langsdelijn



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Commander Vimes died with the Watch and he arose from the the ashes with it in tow.</i><br/>—Agnes Markens, “A History of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inertia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vomit_bunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vomit_bunny/gifts).



_There is no better embodiment of the Watch’s rebirth than its commander, Samuel Vimes._  
—Agnes Markens, “A History of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.”

It was a bad idea, and he didn't want to do it, but as usual he didn’t have much of a choice. The work had been commissioned (at least it wasn’t a biography as they’d originally planned), the writer was waiting in the lobby, and he was supposed to decide whether to send her up now and get it over with or stall and waste his time, hers, and his officers’, and then still have to do it later.  
  
‘Fine,’ he sighed. ‘Tell the front desk to have someone bring her to my office.’  
  
‘Yes, Commander-Sam-Vimes-Office, immediately,’ the imp squealed, and disappeared into the tubes connecting the office network. He wasn’t certain this was a better system than the old speaking tubes, but he had been assured that this was the future of communication (there had been capitals involved), and there were only three buttons he needed to remember, anyway, so he didn’t mind.  
  
‘“She will be here shortly, commander,”’ it relayed, in its odd imitation of a young voice he didn’t recognise.  
  
There was a knock on the door. ‘Commander?’ said a different young voice he didn’t recognise. Gods, they had so many officers now even Carrot couldn’t know them all (and he tried). It seemed incomprehensible, sometimes, the way the Watch had expanded, even though he’d been there for all its growth, had overseen and approved and signed off on all of it. ‘It’s Constable Akkessen with Miss Markens, sir.’  
  
‘Come in,’ he said.  
  
Constable Akkessen turned out to be a young woman who, to judge by the admiring looks she was sending Miss Markens, was a member of the press office.  
  
‘Thank you, Constable Akkessen,’ he said, and stood to greet Miss Markens as Akkessen saluted and left. ‘Miss Markens?’  
  
‘Agnes, please, y—’ she looked at his face, stopped, probably consulted her how-to-deal-with-Sam-Vimes briefing, and finished with a neutrally-polite, ‘sir.’ Perhaps he could still train the city’s press corps out of their your-gracefulness before he died if he just kept glaring them into submission.  
  
He introduced himself, invited her to sit down, and sank back into his own chair. Agnes Markens was around his age, to his surprise, and maybe even a few years older. He’d expected her to be younger.  
  
‘I need to set up my equipment, Commander,’ she said, taking out a disorganiser and setting it on his desk, ‘it will only take a moment.’  
  
‘Fine,’ he said.  
  
She tapped the thing on the side and an imp peered out from between the bars. ‘A test, please,’ she said.  
  
‘Yes, Agnes,’ said the imp agreeably. ‘Recording.’  
  
‘It records our voices,’ she said. ‘Stop recording. Play.’  
  
‘It records our voices,’ the imp repeated dutifully.  
  
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Shall we begin, Commander?’  
  
‘Fine,’ he grunted.  
  
‘Imp, record.’  
  
‘Recording now, Agnes,’ said the imp, and disappeared back into the device.  
  
***  
  
‘You joined the Night Watch on the eve of the revolution.’  
  
‘Yes.’  
  
‘Could you elaborate?’  
  
‘Do I have to?’  
  
‘Ideally.’  
  
He didn’t want to. It had been more difficult than he liked to admit to see how idealistic and hopeful he’d been as a young man. He’d liked pretending he’d been born a hardened cynic.  
  
But being there again had cleared up his memories of the first time around, and he remembered how crushed and disillusioned he’d been after the revolution, how alone he’d felt when most of the survivors quit not long after, how hard he’d tried to cling to his sense of justice and how badly he’d failed to.  
  
In all honestly, he’d mostly been made captain by default and even by then there hadn’t been much left to be captain of, even though the Treacle Mine Road Night Watch was one of the more populous remainders.  
  
He’d tried, in the beginning, because he was a stubborn bastard and because he hadn’t replaced his idealism with alcohol yet, but he had little manpower to work with and even less credibility with the people he was trying to help, because they weren’t stupid and somehow were able to connect the bunch of thugs left in the Day Watch to this naïve young captain trying to insist the Night Watch was on their side.  
  
Gods, he must’ve seemed like such an idiot to them.  
  
***  
  
‘If I may ask, when did you start drinking?’  
  
‘Not long after.’  
  
‘After what, Commander?’  
  
‘It was about a year after I made captain,’ he said.  
  
‘Did something happen?’  
  
‘I upset some lords’ kids’—’  
  
‘“Kids”?’  
  
‘One was a lord’s very enterprising daughter.’  
  
‘Oh. In the Shades?’  
  
‘I’m sure they thought it was.’  
  
‘Hmm.’  
  
‘Anyway, I arrested the lot of them, in the mistaken belief that I had caught them viciously beating a young man. I had, of course, instead interrupted the four of them having some innocent fun.’  
  
‘Why then?’  
  
‘Why not then? In fact, why not much sooner?’  
  
‘You said you’d replaced your idealism with alcohol, earlier.’  
  
‘I did. I don’t know why I started then, and not sooner, or later. In my experience at the time, it was a long time coming. I was already realising I couldn’t do much of anything, and then when I did manage to do something, I wasn’t allowed to, because it was to the wrong sort of people. I don’t think it was the worst injustice of that time, but it stands out.  
  
‘It obviously didn’t matter what I did, anyway, and alcohol was a much easier habit than keeping the faith.’ It was almost cheaper, too, because if he’d kept trying, he probably would have been fired for causing the important people too much trouble. Possibly also because he was living above his station by having opinions in their presence.  
  
‘You’re a stubborn man, Commander. I don’t believe it was that simple.’  
  
He shrugged. It wasn’t that he’d just stopped caring one day, and that incident hadn’t been his first, or last, formal reprimand for interfering in the affairs of his betters, but it had been made increasingly clear to him that his future would not include further employment in the Watch if he continued down this path, and as he’d already been supporting Watch widows by then, he’d chosen to keep his head down instead.  
  
And then, more and more, it had been about keeping the men safe, and balancing his budget between supporting several families and supporting his alcoholism and, if enough money remained, supporting his continued presence in the land of the living.  
  
He remembered more of those years than he cared to. It had taken a lot of alcohol to drown out the insistent, desperate fury.  
  
***  
  
‘And then a dragon came to Ankh-Morpork.’  
  
***  
  


 _Commander Vimes died with the Watch and he arose from the the ashes with it in tow._  
—Agnes Markens, “A History of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.”


End file.
